Something More Than Gold
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Based on the song "If Only" by Andrea Bocelli and Dua Lipa. Admiral Janeway and the Doctor look at an old holoimage.


Something More Than Gold

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Voyager_

Copyright: Paramount

" _Don't they say, when you find love,_

 _Keep it close?_

 _Treasure it like the sunset,_

 _Like something more than gold._

 _Didn't we almost know it?_

 _Didn't we almost have it all_

 _Before we_

 _Let go?_

 _If only we could turn back time,_

 _Take back the day we said goodbye,_

 _Maybe your heart would still be mine –_

 _My love, if only … "_

\- Andrea Bocelli & Dua Lipa, "If Only"

 _(Author's Note: This story takes place in the Endgame timeline.)_

"They keep getting younger," Admiral Kathryn Janeway says softly. "Every year, it's like they're farther away."

She's looking at Chakotay and Seven's wedding holo. His red dress uniform and her white gown, the pink Antarean moon blossoms she carried, his black hair slicked back and her blond hair tumbling around her shoulders, are the most vivid colors in the room. Among the beige walls, mint-green sofa and glass coffee table of the Admiral's living room, which has always looked more like an office than a home, the holoimage is difficult to ignore.

"You didn't have this picture the last time I was here." The Doctor, who is just finished giving his friend her regular physical, packs his tricorder into his briefcase and follows her gaze in the direction of the photo. "May I ask why … ?"

"You were the one who took it," she says, picking up a half-empty mug of chamomile tea from the coffee table. It's not an answer to his question, but he doesn't want to pry. "Remember?"

/

" _Say cheese!" he sang from behind the camera._

" _I fail to see the relevance of dairy products in this situation," said Seven, in an attempt at her usual tone. But when Chakotay wrapped both arms around her waist and drew her close, an irrepressible smile lit up her face._

" _Remember today, my love," he murmured into her ear. "The first step of the greatest journey of our lives. I couldn't ask for a better co-pilot."_

" _Not could I," she said. "Especially while crashing."_

 _Everyone, including Chakotay, burst out laughing._

 _Click went the camera shutter. It was one of the best pictures the Doctor had ever taken._

 _Seven tossed the bouquet and Icheb caught it, turning as pink as the flowers themselves when Naomi teased him. Tom Paris set off a confetti cannon. The KimTones launched into a romantic ballad. Captain Janeway raised a toast, and if her smile was somewhat forced, no one seemed to notice. The mess hall rang with music and happy voices._

 _Sometime during the reception, Seven came to stand next to the Doctor in a quiet corner of the room, just like she always did at parties. She was flushed from waltzing, her eyes bright, the white silk of her gown shimmering with every move she made._

" _Have I ever thanked you," she asked. "For everything you've done for me? The removal of my failsafe device, our social lessons, our … " She paused, uncharacteristically lost for words. "Dancing lesson?"_

" _Of course you did," he said, in a too-bright voice. "I still have the upgraded tricorder you gave me. It works perfectly."_

" _That seems inadequate." She looked down at her brand-new wedding ring, twisting it around her finger. "You should know … "_

" _Yes?"_

" _If not for you, I would not know what love is," she said, barely audible over the music. "No matter what happens, I … I will always be your friend."_

" _And I yours, Seven. Always."_

 _/_

He never asked her what she meant by that. He must have replayed that scene a million times over, but he still doesn't understand.

"I do have an eidetic memory, Admiral," he retorts, more sharply than he meant to. "I could hardly forget."

"Of course not." She drinks the last of her tea and makes a face, as if her thoughts were turning the chamomile bitter. "Neither could I."

He can guess that she's not thinking about the wedding anymore.

/

 _Kathryn and Chakotay materialized in Sickbay torn up, in more than one sense of the word. Shrapnel from an explosion had hit them both, and it took several hours for the Doctor to remove as much of it as possible. When they regained consciousness after the surgery, they looked at him with blank, unfocused eyes, as if they were in shock. They didn't even look at each other._

" _I take it negotiations with the Norcadians didn't go well?" said the Doctor._

" _They have a faction that's opposed to all contact with offworlders," Kathryn rasped, her voice still hoarse from the dust of the explosion. "Very opposed. Enough to strap a bomb to a young man's chest. Skinny kid, about Icheb's age. But he knew what he was doing."_

 _The Doctor gasped with dismay. He was no stranger to violence after ten years in the Delta Quadrant, but things like this never got any easier._

" _Where is Seven?" he asked. "We've been scanning for her life signs, but - "_

 _He glanced from one patient to the other. Chakotay turned his face away on the pillow, both hands balled into fists at his sides. Kathryn shook her head slowly._

" _She didn't make it."_

" _No," he said. "NO!" His voice rose to a shout over the soft humming and beeping over the medical equipment. "I can save her! I can use that Borg technique she taught me, if you'll just find her and bring her back - "_

" _We can't do that, Doctor," said Kathryn, in the same hoarse, emotionless voice. "She walked right up to the bomber, you see, trying to talk him out of it … she was closer to the blast than we were. There's … there's nothing left to bring back. I'm sorry."_

 _Chakotay turned to face his captain and spoke, for the first time since they had beamed to Sickbay. His black eyes were colder than the Void._

" _You should be sorry," he said. "You and your damned Starfleet ideals just couldn't leave well enough alone."_

" _Commander!" said the Doctor reproachfully._

 _Kathryn held up a hand to silence him, even though the small movement made her grimace in pain._

" _He's right," she said. "It is my fault. I take full responsibility."_

 _/_

That was not the first time the Doctor heard that note of bitterness in his captain's voice. But from that day on, it never went away. She stopped drinking coffee, stopped dyeing the gray out of her hair, stopped taking risks in her command decisions even if it might have meant a shortcut home. If not for the fortunate discovery of a wormhole that was both large and stable enough to travel through, they might still be in the Delta Quadrant today.

When Chakotay died of a heart attack while hiking in the Rocky Mountains, Kathryn went to his funeral, gave a speech that would have done credit to a Vulcan, and locked herself in her apartment for thirty days. Nothing would budge her – logic, pleading, shouting, threatening to send in the psychiatrists from Starfleet Medical – until she found out that Tuvok's dementia had taken a turn for the worse. She forced herself to visit him every week and so, gradually, returned to the real world.

But she was never the same again.

"If you could go back in time to save them," Kathryn asks, "Would you?"

"What an unusual question," he says. "You've always hated temporal mechanics. Why do you ask?"

She shrugs. "Just wondering."

If he knew she was literally planning to do that, he would say no. His ethical programming would compel him, for the integrity of the timeline, for Sabrina Wildman and all the other children born since that day. But since he does not know that – since it doesn't even occur to him – his answer comes from the heart.

"I'd do anything," he says.

"Me too, Doctor." She holds out her hands and lets him pull her to her feet. "Me too."


End file.
